In Building God's Kingdom, Julie J. Ingersoll examines Christian Reconstructionism, the shadowy theological movement that over the last half century has sought to “reconstruct” American society based on biblical law. Tracing it from its mid-20th century origins to today, Ingersoll argues that in spite of its small size and unconventional doctrines, the movement has been instrumental in shaping the views of a Christian conservative subculture on everything from social and economic policy to the providential character of American history. Furthermore, she contends that its influence has been both broad and subtle, because as Reconstructionist rhetoric has made its way into public discourse, many conservatives have adopted it without knowing its origins or full implications.

The book begins with an analysis of Reconstructionist theory, introducing ideas of theology, law, and society found in the writings of movement founder R. J. Rushdoony, as well as in the work of followers such as Greg Bahnsen, David Chilton, Gary North, and Gary DeMar. It goes on to show how these ideas have made their way into the thinking of many fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals, drawing on extensive fieldwork to consider how they have influenced Christian schools and homeschools, the creationist movement, and groups committed to the concept of “biblical patriarchy.” The book investigates the presence of Rushdoony's ideas in the views of Christian American history advocated by Texas activist and author David Barton, and finds examples of Reconstructionist rhetoric in leaders of the recent Tea Party. It concludes with a chapter on the relationship between Reconstructionism and violence, evaluating concerns about its influence on anti-Semitism, racism, and anti-abortion extremism.

An associate professor of religious studies, Ingersoll describes herself as a translator whose goal is to demonstrate the internal coherence of what Reconstructionists call their “worldview.” In unpacking it, she translates well, adeptly decoding the often abstruse concepts described by Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Chilton, and others. Among these, three ideas stand out: presuppositionalism (the assumption that knowledge about all human experience must begin and end with the Bible, and that all other alternatives consist of abject moral relativism); postmillennialism (the belief that Christians are currently living in the biblically promised millennium, and that they are obliged to work actively to bring about the fulfillment of God's kingdom on earth rather than wait passively to see the end of the world); and theonomy (the notion that Mosaic law should be applicable to a reconstructed modern society, theoretically requiring civil punishments including the death penalty for adultery, homosexuality, and many common forms of perceived delinquency). Depicting the interlocking character of these concepts, Ingersoll shows how they have been transcribed into more accessible terms by writers like North and DeMar, who have encouraged a broader audience of religious conservatives to confront “secular humanism,” actively work to transform America into a biblically based “Christian nation,” and exercise God-ordained sovereignty in the spheres of church, family, and civil government as part of their “dominion mandate.” She also describes how activists like Tim LaHaye and political operatives such as Howard Phillips adopted this terminology, bringing it into the heart of what would come to be called the New Christian Right. The analysis is solid, and while readers will find a more detailed treatment of Reconstructionist theory and its early application to politics in Michael J. McVicar's recent Christian Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), Ingersoll's book provides an accessible and timely introduction to the topic.

Turning from theory to practice, the author introduces a series of case studies, in which she investigates Reconstructionist influences on a selection of institutional sites. Here she writes as a former “insider,” having married into a prominent Reconstructionist family, cofounded a Christian school, and been an activist in right-to-life groups including Operation Rescue. Adopting an ethnographic approach, she shows how Reconstructionist ideas have been instituted in certain Christian schools and home schooling associations, creationist groups, and pro-family organizations. In central chapters she lays out clear connections, particularly in demonstrating how Rushdoony's writings on education were important in the development of the Christian day school movement that emerged in the 1970s, and how his followers worked successfully to shape legal strategies and curriculum choice among some Christian home school groups.

Tracing the personal ties that create the interconnected web of Reconstructionist elites, the book gives special attention to Doug Phillips (son of Howard Phillips) and his Vision Forum Ministries, describing how he brought Rushdoony's views on gender and family relations into what has been called the “quiverfull” movement. Pulling no punches, Ingersoll details Vision Forum's collapse when Phillips was forced to resign in a splashy sex scandal, while also making clear the effect of its highly restrictive views of gender relations on women. At the same time, she sometimes overreaches, as in her discussion of Reconstructionism's influence on creationism, where she cites early efforts to include young earth creationism in its school textbooks, but provides little else to clearly connect these two decidedly different movements.

The ties become even more tenuous in the last part of the book, which seeks to show Reconstructionism's relationship not only to figures such as Barton and Operation Rescue's Randall Terry, but to a diverse array of activists and organizations that include Tea Party, gun rights, and neo-confederate groups, along with politicians such as Ron and Rand Paul. Tracing Reconstructionist rhetoric through a maze of conservative publications and websites, documenting the appearance of Reconstructionist personalities at conservative conferences and other venues, she finds some intriguing connections, including the presence of representatives of DeMar's American Vision in early Tea Party circles. Almost as often, however, the author has to concede that the discursive and personal links are limited, that Rushdoony's influence was what she calls “meandering” (211), and that Reconstructionism is only one of many contributors to contemporary Christian conservatism. In the absence of a stronger theoretical framework that would allow her to more clearly demarcate the influence of discourse or chart the existence of social networks, readers will wonder whether Ingersoll, for whom “little slivers” of Rushdoony's work “seem to be everywhere” (212), has pictured the movement's influence as more extensive than it is. Even so, at a time when many contemporary observers are declaiming the demise of the Christian Right in American politics, Ingersoll's Building God's Kingdom reminds us that some religious activists set their sights higher than the outcome of the next election, and practice a kind of politics that is completely committed to a total transformation of every aspect of our common life.